Childhood and child labour in the British Industrial Revolution / Jane Humphries.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Humphries, Jane, 1948- author.

Series:

Cambridge studies in economic history. Second series.

Cambridge studies in economic history. Second series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Child labor--Great Britain--History.

Child labor.

Children--Great Britain--History.

Children.

Industrial revolution--Great Britain.

Industrial revolution.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiii, 439 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Other Title:

Childhood & Child Labour in the British Industrial Revolution

Place of Publication:

Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 2010.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

This is a unique account of working-class childhood during the British industrial revolution, first published in 2010. Using more than 600 autobiographies written by working men of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries Jane Humphries illuminates working-class childhood in contexts untouched by conventional sources and facilitates estimates of age at starting work, social mobility, the extent of apprenticeship and the duration of schooling. The classic era of industrialisation, 1790-1850, apparently saw an upsurge in child labour. While the memoirs implicate mechanisation and the division of labour in this increase, they also show that fatherlessness and large subsets, common in these turbulent, high-mortality and high-fertility times, often cast children as partners and supports for mothers struggling to hold families together. The book offers unprecedented insights into child labour, family life, careers and schooling. Its images of suffering, stoicism and occasional childish pleasures put the humanity back into economic history and the trauma back into the industrial revolution.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction; 2. Sources, models, context; 3. Families; 4. Household economy; 5. Family relationships; 6. Wider kin; 7. Starting work; 8. Jobs; 9. Apprenticeship; 10. Schooling; 11. Conclusion; Bibliography.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

ISBN:

1-107-20982-X

0-511-85228-2

1-282-91865-6

9786612918650

0-511-93109-3

0-511-93243-X

0-511-92725-8

0-511-92471-2

0-511-78045-1

0-511-92975-7

OCLC:

705929216